


I Gave You All

by eamesish



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eamesish/pseuds/eamesish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For John, forgetting is like breathing. He gradually learns to ignore the upturned collars and dark hair he seems to see everywhere, so when he bumps into someone achingly familiar at the local cafe, he almost lets the man pass him by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Gave You All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sassiarty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassiarty/gifts).



> I've been listening to way too much Mumford and Sons lately, so I've been having Sherlock feels. [Sassiarty](archiveofourown.org/users/sassiarty) capitalized on this and made me write her a fic with this prompt:  
> "okay, all I want out of life is for someone to write an AU where Sherlock survives the fall, BUT he loses his memory. So he does the whole disappearing thing, and John thinks he's dead, etc. BUT Sherlock's memory is gone (I mean he hit that concrete pretty damn hard) so he doesn't remember John, and they run into each other on the street or something and John freaks out because SHERLOCK and Sherlock has no idea who he is. GOGOGOGO. I'LL LOVE YOU 9EVER."  
> So, uh, here it is. xD I've never done any Sherlock fic before, so hope ya'll like it. Lemme know what'cha think. If I end up having more Sherlock feels, you might see more of this, so keep an eye out.

For John, forgetting is like breathing: it's easy, it's quick, it's automatic.

It wasn't always like that.

When Sherlock had first died, both forgetting _and_ breathing had been difficult. This weight on his chest had settled in, suffocating him slowly, making everything a chore. He'd see dark hair or a disapproving brow or an upturned collar and his heart would stop momentarily, would scream _that's him,_ and the memories would flood back, choking him with the heavy taste of regret and remorse, making him feel like perhaps drowning in actual water would be preferable to letting his memories do the job in their slow, thorough way.

Of course, it never was him. Every time John's heart would stutter and he'd think  _maybe this time, just maybe,_ and that maybe ended up being a  _no_ and he'd force the fake smile he knew so well back onto his face and go on with his life as if there weren't a great gaping Sherlock-shaped hole in his life where his sanity used to be.

It was hard, but it got easier.

As much as he hated himself for getting used to it, the pain just... dulled. The memories buried themselves and stopped reappearing as readily, taking more than just a certain phrase or look to trigger them. He finally managed to get a handle on his life and things actually started looking up and the  _maybe it's him_ s turned into  _maybe I can move on_ s and instead of laughing at the thought he actually  _believed_ it.

So it was that John forgot; so it was that he breathed. He stopped hoping, but he also didn't need the hope to survive anymore. Some deep part of him still yearned for Sherlock to be alive somehow, certainly, but that part of him no longer mattered. Or at least, he liked to think it didn't. The reality of that sentiment was something he didn't want to face.

That coping was all in the past. Now—how long has it been? A year? Two? Time stopped meaning anything a long time ago—he's fully coped and unbreakable, he likes to think, and he doesn't go to therapy and he doesn't spend all his time sitting alone in his apartment and he doesn't wake up with the image of Sherlock's bloody face ingrained behind his eyelids; that's the  _past_ and he's  _new_ and he's  _strong._ Now he's just a man getting coffee for his sister because he's a good brother who takes care of the woman who's put up with him for far too long and that's all he is, not the survivor of the giant feud between two sociopathic geniuses.

He still visits his old blog sometimes, to reminisce. He tries not to, but it happens.

“The usual,” he says to the cashier at the counter, pushing aside his thoughts in favor of functioning properly. Both he and Harriet have been drinking far too much coffee lately—he'd always been partial to tea, honestly, but coffee is Harry's replacement for alcohol and thus his responsibility and her pouting managed to rope him into her addiction—so he's quite familiar with the staff at the cafe in which he now stands. He even recognizes a majority of the customers on a good day, waving hello or making small talk when he has the time.

_Spiraling into addiction as a team,_ he thinks wryly, grabbing the two cups of coffee when they're ready and making to leave.

That's when he sees it.

He'd recognize the coat anywhere. It's black and longish and a little bit heavy for the weather and maybe it's not actually that rare and it could be someone else's but he knows in his  _gut_ that it isn't and as the coat and its occupant exit the cafe, he can't help the desperate “Wait!” that tears from his throat, nor can he help the way his heart picks up in speed.

Hurrying outside, he takes stock of the dark head of hair atop the coat and knows he's not mistaken. Sure, the last few thousand times he was wrong, but this time is different, this time he's  _sure._

“Sherlock!” he cries, hurrying toward the man. There's this horrible moment when his heart thumps in his throat and he's completely unsure of himself and he knows he's wrong, just like every other time he's been wrong, and he _knows_ it can't be the man he's looking for and he's turning around and—

It's him.

The sight is like a punch to the gut: one moment he's taking advantage of all the oxygen just laying around, the next it's all run away from him to some place where he can't dream of finding it. Those imperious cheekbones, that soured milk frown, he'd know them anywhere. There's no mistaking him. It's _Sherlock._

“Sherlock,” he says again—barely breathes the word—and then there's a lump in his throat and for a moment he thinks he might actually cry, but he's John and he's Tough and Brave and he doesn't shed tears, not where they're unwarranted.

“I thought you were dead.”

The silence between them is deafening. John can see the cogs working because he's memorized them all, because while he doesn't know how they truly work, he knows they're _there,_ and any moment now Sherlock will give him a tight little smile and apologize with much less emotion than is due and maybe John will punch him square in the mouth or maybe he'll kiss him, he's not quite sure yet and he won't be sure until the man fucking _says_ something.

“Pardon?”

Of all the words in the world he could choose, it's that one.

John's eyebrows shoot downward.

“I—what do you mean? Sherlock, don't you—don't you recognize me?”

The cogs turn.

“Should I?”

John's mouth feels like it's been stuffed full of cotton. He tries to find words but none come to mind, only incoherent babblings that would neither help the situation nor shed any light on it, so he keeps his mouth shut until he thinks of something that actually makes sense.

Finally: “It's John. Your... your flatmate.”

Pause.

“I don't recall having had a flatmate. I was looking for one quite a while ago, but that never came to fruition.”

Sherlock is getting suspicious and John is getting desperate. What do you say to the man who wormed his way into your life, who became your best friend, who _died_ and then came back to life, and who now does not recognize you?

So he says nothing. He stands there, speechless, as Sherlock's gaze bores into his soul, because really, what words can possibly describe how he feels at this moment?

“I'm sorry, but I really must be going. I've a lot to do today and I can't afford to dawdle. I'm sure we've never met.” He pauses and something unreadable flickers across his expression. “Good day.”

He turns and begins to walk away, unaffected by the situation. He's just... he's going, leaving John there, as if nothing unusual had happened, as if he hadn't been _dead_ until a minute ago. John sees his receding back and panic flares up somewhere deep within him, like an uncontrollable wildfire, and he thinks he might actually be losing his mind. His chance is slipping away and he's letting it, just standing there gaping as the man who changed his life walks away from him like they're complete strangers.

_Think, think,_ he screams internally, as if there's some way out of all of this. He's grasping at straws and he knows it, but he can't stop himself from scrambling for something, anything to make Sherlock stay, if only for a moment more.

“Wait!” he finally cries, dashing forward and grabbing Sherlock's sleeve.

“I... I can prove it.”

...

Sherlock is skeptical at first, John knows it, but he goes along with it anyway. There are many things John let go of to put his life together, but he never got rid of his key to their old flat.

“221B Baker Street,” he'd said frantically, pulling out his keyring. He'd known it'd make him seem like a stalker, but he hadn't cared—what other choice did he have?

“Yes,” Sherlock had replied, “that's my flat.”

“I still have the key to it. From when I lived there, too, before you—” He realized that announcing Sherlock's death to his face when clearly he was not deceased was probably not a great idea.

“Before I?”

“Nevermind.”

Sherlock had, amazingly enough, gone along with it. They got into a cab and made their merry way to Baker Street, both men deep in thought, and neither had said a word.

Now, standing in front of the door John knows so well, he takes a deep breath and sticks his key in the lock.

It works.

“Seventeen steps,” he says as they walk up. John expects to hear Mrs. Hudson's greeting out of habit, but knows he will hear nothing: she left not long after Sherlock's death, partially due to the press and partially due to, well, the fact that he was dead. Even she'd grown attached, though she'd liked to gripe about this or that anyway.

He lets himself into the flat and pads in, looking around for something,  _anything_ that can prove he used to live there. The smiley face is gone from the wall, unfortunately, and it looks much like it had when he'd first moved in.

_Did I leave anything here?_ he thinks, racking his brain for the knowledge. He was pretty thorough, though, and nothing immediately comes to mind, and for a moment he thinks he's going to kicked out and that panic flares back up in his chest and—

“Laptop. Do you have a laptop?”

Sherlock eyes coolly. “What for?”

“Proof.”

Sherlock produces the laptop, though how he's still going along with this John doesn't know. He pulls up the oldest post on his blog and hands the machine to Sherlock, settling into the armchair across from him anxiously.

“Read those. All of them.”

Sherlock sighs, but he starts reading the first one anyway. As John looks on, his expression changes from stoic and unreadable to pained and confused, like he's conflicted. For the next half an hour John sits in silence, watching Sherlock read.

He clears his throat when he's done, looking up and folding his hands.

“I believe you,” he says quietly, his expression somewhat pained. “I knew something was missing, and I just... didn't know what it was.” He looks back at the screen, pressing his lips together. “So this is all true?”

“Every last word.”

“I don't remember anything.”

John swallowed hard.

“You... you hit the pavement pretty hard.” Images of Sherlock, of his blood-spattered face, of how _final_ it had seemed, flash through his mind, making a lump form in his throat. “It wouldn't be out of the question to say the impact made you forget it all.”

Sherlock laughs weakly.

“So I've forgotten a good bit of my professional life and I'm _dead_ to the world and I've got a flatmate I don't remember and I've just received all this information at once and now I'm meant to live with it.”

“Something like that.” John pauses, then: “So what do we do now?”

Sherlock looks away, probably trying to think of what to say.

“We could start over.”

John glances at him, as if for once he'd be able to figure the man out just by looking.

“We could,” Sherlock continues, sounding more confident.

“But where?”

Sherlock sighs, standing up, and his expression returns to its usual passivity.

“At the beginning.”


End file.
